ShopClues, an online marketplace for unbranded products, has launched an audit and quality assurance programme called Surety. It will provide a five-point quality check for the products sold on the company's platform and will also use data analytics for the same. For this, the company has tied up with third party agencies, said ShopClue's Nitin Kochhar, VP (Categories), at the product launch.

The programme audits each product on a set of five quality parameters such as finish, functionality and technology. These rating are classified under 'Best Buy', 'Great Buy', 'Value Buy' and 'Brand Authorised'.

Products, which get best ratings on all five criteria, will be tagged as a 'Best Buy' product, signifying that the quality of the product is equivalent to that of a branded product. Similarly, a 'Great Buy' product is rated good in terms of all the five parameters of the quality check process.

The product is a combine of good quality and best pricing. A 'Value Buy' product fulfils all the five quality check parameters as it delivers all functional benefits and is value for money. A 'Brand Authorised' product is 100 per cent genuine and is sold by a brand-authorised merchant.

The aim of the Surety programme is to guide and assure customers, allowing them to make best purchase decisions, especially when it comes to unbranded products where the quality can greatly vary.

"Being a true marketplace, ShopClues believes this is the right model for India where lakhs of merchants with good quality products to offer should have an equal chance of doing business on the platform," Kochhar said.

The programme addresses three things: Product quality, right price for the quality offered and a level playing field for merchants who sell unbranded products, he added.

"We are different from Snapdeal Gold and Flipkart Assured because we audit, have quality checks and data analytics for unbranded products," he said.

"ShopClues has always differentiated its value proposition from other e-commerce competitors by offering a wide variety of unstructured portfolio of products from local and regional merchants. This move is made to give this large, unstructured portfolio a structured approach," said Radhika Aggarwal, co-founder and chief business officer of ShopClues.

The company claims that 50 per cent of its sales came from products that were certified by Surety in the months of March and April.